Political Quotes

“I thank my good friend from Texas for yielding me some time on this significant issue. I have read some of the comments that have been made in the past, saying, You're a conservative. NASA is saying in this new budget that they want to commercialize and privatize the program. Why aren't you supporting that? I have to admit, I think it comes down to an issue of semantics. When I think of privatization, I make three assumptions: It will cost the taxpayer less money, there will be a smaller government force in use, and there will be a better product. I think, as the gentleman from Texas would agree with me, this plan that NASA has put forward doesn't do any of those. Indeed, it costs more for a NASA budget. It increases the cost that the taxpayer will be spending on NASA. There are no Federal jobs that will be eliminated, only private-sector jobs, to the tune of about 30,000 jobs nationwide of scientists, engineers, mathematicians, those kinds of jobs that we don't really want to lose and we're trying to encourage young students to go into, and there is not a better product. As the gentleman from Texas said, it was ironic that the other day the Constellation Program passed their predesign review, which means after expensive engineering and technical checks, they passed everything. There is nothing technologically wrong with Constellation. It is ready to go forward.…”